Volpatti's toughness has been lost for the year, and the team still needs to replace his planking ability.

Following a season ending injury to Aaron Volpatti and recent injuries to "skill players" David Booth and Cody Hodgson: the Smylosphere is preoccupied with the Canucks "team toughness", and the personnel on the fourth line. This preoccupation gained added steam following a physical, dirty game against the Ottawa Senators in, which, several Canucks (including Kesler and Edler) were dealt cheap-shots while in vulnerable positions.

One of these guys apparently had an excellent game on Saturday
(photo: Yahoo! Sports)

Chris Neil is amazing! He's driving everyone nuts! Who cares that his team is down 3-0 - let's talk about him!

Saturday night was a backwards triumph for the evil Canuck narrative. Instead of telling us why they were systematically disassembling the Senators, the brilliant collection of commentators at Hockey Night in Canada instead chose to spin a tale of aggravation and aggression. Chris Neil running around is exciting. Clinical precision is not.

This is a Guest Piece By Andrey Osadchenko

Vancouver is seen by many Russians as a surreal place – it’s about as far out West from Western Russia (the most populated part of the country) as it gets. Maybe this is why there haven’t been a whole lot of ruskies in the Canucks’ system historically. Perhaps, there’s a another explanation for that, but the fact is several of the Russian skaters who made it all the way out to BC became legendary. At least, 3 of them did. Here’s a quick look at the Top-5 Russians who ever played for the blue- green-and-white (or black-yellow and red).

It was a rough and tumble affair in the Nation's capital last night, but the Canucks comfortably controlled proceedings and dominated the Senators on their way to a convincing 4-1 win. While the Canucks played very well, they didn't comport themselves as well as they performed. The team abandoned to some extent their "between the whistles" mantra and the result was a fair few penalties, a fight to respond to a borderline hit, and what I'd call a loss of focus at times. The Senators aren't a good enough team to make the Canucks pay for this sort of shenanigans, but I'd prefer the Canucks stuck to a more straight up variation of jerk-puck. Also, when discussing referees after games, can we get the team a collective muzzle? A more detailed recap and chance data after the jump.